Thursday, February 18, 2010

Rice Growth Day 9

At this stage of the science lab, students have taken photographs of the first several days of rice germination, and they been able to witness which of the two samples of rice seeds has shown more growth: the test pot or the control pot. In most cases, and particularly at this early stage, the results were varied, and still inconclusive.

By now, each group had collected anywhere from 10-20 photographs of their lab, and were ready to start planning their digital story. The specifics of the rubric were outlined, and the groups began writing their script for photostory3. As a tech-focused international school, I was surprised by the level of confusion that developed amongst the students. As photostory3 was new to many of the students, some showed apprehension to using a new simple movie-making program, and wanted to stick to programs that they were familiar with. Others remained unclear that they were in fact making a simple movie at all. Exemplars were needed to help clear up the confusion, and demystify the new program.

Another ‘new technology’ pitfall was students not knowing how to transfer images from their various devices ( to computers. Or in some cases, students lost their cameras altogether.

This could be overcome by reserving the school’s supplies of digital camera for the duration of the four week unit, establishing a standard for the cameras, or by collecting and storing cameras for each group at the end of each class.